Fake news, genetic engineering, designer babies, Big Pharma, incipient totalitarian rule, the destruction of books, transhumanism, the desire to play God, and the serial misuse of the word “science”—it may sound a lot like America in the 2020s, but these politically charged modern concerns have been probed deeply in classic fiction by a host of prescient authors over the past two centuries. The Art of Being Human draws some much-needed attention to the impact great literature can and does have, especially in the realm of the cautionary tale, in considering how we might learn from the past in order to inform our present decisions and plan for the future, all the while maintaining our humanity amid a dehumanizing world.
Praise
“Classic novels such as Frankenstein, Doctor Faustus, Brave New World, That Hideous Strength,and Fahrenheit 451 take on new meaning in the early 21st century, when so many powerful institutions seek to manipulate human nature. Michael Rose has used such works of fiction to help his students explore the question of what is essential to our humanity. I wish I had a seat in his classroom. But now his book, The Art of Being Human, provides a valuable substitute.”
—PHIL LAWLER
Founder of Catholic World News
“This delightful book is an almost complete education. Author Michael Rose has the teacher’s gift to understand and explain, and his love for these most lovable books is manifest in every line. I say ‘almost complete’: it can become complete if the reader follows its call into the books themselves, and others like them. The Art of Being Human will make you want to do just that.”
—LARRY P. ARNN
President of Hillsdale College
“What Michael Rose has done in his new book The Art of Being Human is masterful and prophetic! His analysis and expounding upon the wisdom of these classic works will help readers apply them to their lives and ponder the future in their light. This book is a must-have for not only every high school literature teacher and homeschooling parent, but for anyone interested in being a more thoughtful and better human. Truly impressive.”
—JOHN E. LEYENDECKER
Director of Mission, The Holy Family School of Faith
“Contemporary culture seeks to reinvent history and to redefine reality. The ‘indoctrinators’ of current academia seek to control minds by making them hostages to au currant political correctness. In The Art of Being Human, Michael Rose demythologizes this irrational methodology in three sections of the book: Promethean Pursuits, Transhumanist Goals, Totalitarian Dreams. Just as the Mediaevals learned from the wisdom of the Ancients and expanded and developed it further, so modern man in the 21st century can continue the practice and learn from his proximate as well as remote past.”
—REV. FR. JOHN TRIGILIO, JR.
Seminary Spiritual Director / Formation Advisor, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary
About the Author
MICHAEL S. ROSE is author of several previous books, including Goodbye Good Men, Ugly As Sin, and Benedict XVI: The Man Who Was Ratzinger. He holds degrees in Architecture (Cincinnati), Literary Arts (Brown), and Education (Xavier), as well as the Certificate of School Management and Leadership from Harvard Business School. From 2005 to 2021 he served as Book Editor and Associate Editor for New Oxford Review, in which some of these essays appeared in slightly different form as a part of his monthly “Literature Matters” column. He also taught literature, composition, journalism, and rhetoric at the college and high school levels before assuming his current position as Headmaster of Cincinnati Classical Academy. He is married with five children and lives in Cincinnati.
